


The Backup

by Wasuremono



Category: Mother 2: Gyiyg no Gyakushuu | EarthBound
Genre: Clones, Dr. Andonuts's A+ Parenting, Family Drama, Gen, Light Angst, Post-Canon, reference to past character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 21:16:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11722716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wasuremono/pseuds/Wasuremono
Summary: Before the final fight against Giygas, Dr. Andonuts took "precautions" to avoid losing his son, as only he could. Now Jeff is back in Winters, his clone is a month away from leaving its tank, and it's fallen on him to turn his father's project into a human being. (Some Andonuts family angst, naturally.)





	The Backup

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the "100 Words of Clones" prompts over at fail_fandomanon; the idea hit me, I wrote the first 200 words, and then I kind of had to finish it up. This is a weird idea, and maybe a little self-indulgent, but what's fanfic for if not for engaging in self-indulgent meditations on the media you love?

"I don't know how to explain it rationally, Jeff. I was afraid I was going to lose you, so... I took precautions."

Jeff can't even reply; he's still staring into the tank, at the silhouette of the 'precaution.' It's nearly as tall as he is now, floating slack-limbed in its liquid growth medium, and he's grateful for the tank's frosted glass keeping him from a better view of its developmental state. Sometimes, there are things you don't need to know.

His father goes on, talking about backup measures and mind transfers, but Jeff's still trying to figure out which question to ask first. This thing, this organism -- is it going to come out of that tank with his mind? With any mind at all? Were there even implanted procedural memories? How much work was it going to take to create a functional... organism...

( _Person, Jeff,_ the back of his mind whispers. _He's going to be a person, unless there's something Dad isn't telling you._ But the silhouette is human, completely familiar.)

Finally, Jeff asks the question he's been mentally circling around. "What are you going to do with him once he's out?"

"I don't know," says Dr. Andonuts. "... Does your school take mid-year enrollments?"

"Maybe? But... Dad." He says the word in a way he never has before, with certainty, with emphasis. "If he's going to school, he has to be functional. He has to be human, or..." 

( _Or his life will be unspeakably hideous, and I'm not going to be a part of that, and you shouldn't be either._ )

"... or people will know something's wrong. So... how do we do it?"

Dad perks up, just a bit; 'how' is easier for him to answer than 'what' or 'why,' Jeff knows. "Memory templating! Let me get you up to speed on the device. We'll have to design a scheme, but how long can that take?"

* * *

It takes three weeks of the five they have left before the decanting, as Dr. Andonuts says, or the birthday, as Jeff prefers to think. Designing a set of procedural memories for a newly-minted nearly-14-year-old isn't easy, and they agree early on (and blessedly easily) that they can't all just be Jeff's. The person who's going to come out of that tank isn't a backup, not anymore.

Jeff is the first to subject himself to the memory templater, an apparatus more like an electric chair than is frankly comfortable; he shaves his temples to accept the electrical contacts of the helmet unit, grateful for a lack of drills and cannulas. The sensation of the templater accessing and copying what his father calls "the basic developmental skills suite" is foreign: a lightheadedness, and warmth at the base of his skull, like a single pinpoint of fever. The more focused procedural memories at least allow him to concentrate, a welcome distraction. He reserves most of his mechanical knowledge, guiltily, but it isn't too selfish to want to remain exceptional in nearly the only way he ever has been, is it? The explosives, too, he holds back, even as he offers his marksmanship freely. It might be nice to have someone to go to the range with.

"It's an adequate start," says Dr. Andonuts when Jeff finishes his fourth day in the templater. "We can proceed to the second stage."

Jeff calls his friends.

Ness asks if he's sure this isn't a robot. ("A robot would be a lot easier than this, trust me.") Paula asks why it was just him, not the others as well; wouldn't they all have needed this, if something had gone wrong? ("I think Dad only has one cloning tube," says Jeff. It's all the explanation he has.) All Poo says is that he understands and he'll be there, and when the knock at the door comes the next day, all three of the Chosen are there. 

Sometimes, Jeff is still the luckiest person in the world.

Like the fairies attending the birth of Sleeping Beauty, each of his friends offers gifts. Ness contributes an Eaglelandic boyhood of playing catch, swimming in gravel pits, and riding a bicycle. (Jeff knows how to swim, but the rest is a mystery to him. He's never owned a vehicle without an engine.) Paula adds first aid, a little woodworking -- mostly furniture repair from a childhood helping out in her father's woodshop, salvaging preschool furniture -- and childhood piano lessons. Poo smiles a bit sadly as he steps to the templater, already apologizing for his "narrow training," but he offers basic Dalaamese cooking, stargazing, and at last, meditation. "He may need that, after all. I suspect your brother will have a difficult path ahead of him."

Jeff knows it. That's Sleeping Beauty again, isn't it? The boy who steps out of that tank is cursed to be born an Andonuts. All Jeff can offer is the final gift of being his brother as best he can.

No, not quite right. There's one more thing.

After his friends have left, after his father is in bed, Jeff sneaks down to the templater. He's told himself he won't template any non-procedural memories, but if this is going to be his brother, he has to know about Mom, doesn't he? He has to _remember_ her. 

Jeff takes his seat, applies the contacts, flips the switch, and remembers as hard as he can, in as close to chronological order as he can. The earliest memories he can scrape together are first, the ones that are mostly sound and scent and blurry still images; next are the beginnings of narrative, starting inevitably with the separation and the move. The terror of the plane, the pain in his ears, Mom stroking his hair and saying it'd be fine soon. _This too shall pass,_ and a little laugh, as if this was easy. (Was it? He's never asked. He's never had a chance. Was there ever a divorce, or just... distance?) The sharper memories of his mother in their little apartment, for the few years before he first left for Snow Wood. _You'll love it, sweetheart. You can always call me, and Papa will come visit. Won't that be nice?_

(Ahahaha. Ha ha. _Ha._ )

A few holidays, and then... the day. Late February, a month before his eighth birthday. His art teacher taking a call in the hallway, then stepping to his deck and speaking low: _Jeff, please go to the Headmaster's office. There's news from home._ His abandonment of his pastel-crayon landscape and his walk to the office, already worried for no reason he can quite name. The headmaster, ashen. 

_Jeff, we've had a call from your grandmother. Your mother was in an accident. I'm afraid she's passed on._

Another plane ride, alone this time, his ears screaming the entire way. A visitation, a funeral, a dinner, all a blur of relatives; the sight of his father somewhere in the crowd, but always too far to reach. Cleaning up the apartment with the adults, packing his things to take to Grandma and Grandpa's, when his tears all come at once and he falls to the floor and bawls in an empty room.

Jeff pulls off the contacts and leaves the templater to finish its work. He's not sure if any of this will make sense to the boy in the tube, who's never been to Snow Wood before, never flown in an airplane, and will never have a mother in the present tense. They'll have to talk about it, once they can talk. But he needs to know.

Jeff staggers back to bed and doesn't wake until mid-afternoon, when he overhears his father on the phone. "... have all the needed supplies arranged, of course, and the textbooks. We'll come to fill out the formal paperwork once he arrives in Winters. I appreciate your understanding, Headmaster Pryce..."

Snow Wood admission. Of course. It's time for logistics, isn't it?

* * *

Logistics go more smoothly than anticipated. His father's name carries more cachet than Jeff ever suspected, and the next day, he's on the phone with the head administrator of Snow Wood Regional Hospital, speaking as if they're still college chums. "You see, Benny, it's about my son. ... No, not Jeff -- he's doing well, thank you, and I'll pass that on. My other son. ... Well, that's the problem. I do have one, but he needs to exist on paper. School enrollment, you know..."

Jeff has no idea what "Benny" must assume is going on, but whatever it is, it works. Two days later, a courier arrives with an official copy of a birth certificate for George Fletcher Andonuts, born at 9:49 PM on March 26, 198Y to Sarah Marie Fletcher and Albert Clarence Andonuts, signed and stamped and forged. On paper, Jeff's brother will be his younger twin by 17 minutes. It's a necessary lie, but something in it still disorients him, as if reality is rewriting itself before his eyes. As if his brother, long-lost, really is about to fly in and join him at school, not emerge from a nutrient tank like Aphrodite from the seafoam. A month into the process, sometimes it still all seems so strange.

He steadies himself by letting Ness and Paula take him shopping in Fourside, buying clothes his size, mostly not for himself. His brother will need things besides his school uniform, after all, if only for weekends. He buys a few sweaters and a few collared shirts in neutral colors, several pairs of simple trousers, and basic white socks and underthings, plus the outdoor gear: parka, hat, gloves, a raincoat for summer. Then there are school supplies, in their multitudes, and for a moment he loses himself simply in providing for simple needs. Ness and Paula offer suggestions, but mostly they make jokes and buy him lunch at the department-store cafe. He barely even realizes that they should both be terrified of his place, and that he should too. Somehow, it's evaporated.

Jeff makes one purchase for himself: a slightly unspeakable sweater, geometric cable-knit in aqua wool with glittery silver particles. It'll make Tony laugh to see him wearing it, he knows, and he owes Tony a laugh after everything, and with everything to come.

At home, in the last restless few days, Jeff packs his brother's brand-new suitcases with the clothes and supplies he has ready for him, leaving out just enough for his few days at the lab before they return for the next school term. Then there's nothing else to do but wait.

He tries to read. It doesn't work. He tries to sleep. Even worse. He throws himself into a project, an old crystal radio in bad need of gutting, and it's just enough to keep him distracted.

* * *

When the birthday, or decanting, arrives, Dr. Andonuts is at the controls for the clone tank and Jeff is standing by with a towel, a bathrobe, and his backup glasses. It's stupid, but it's all he can do. When his father glances towards him, he nods. He's as ready as he can be, which is, admittedly, not very. 

Slowly, the medium drains from the tank, and the suspended figure within is lowered to his feet. His legs support his weight -- good. Seams appear in the tank as the door unseals, and Jeff steps forward. The door retracts. 

The boy inside, wet with tank-broth, steps out. His hair hangs shaggily, nearly to his shoulders at the back, much longer than Jeff had expected; it reminds him of his childhood rat's nest, before Tony bought him an electric clipper for Christmas and he learned to use it. The build is not quite his, just a bit slimmer and softer: a body, Jeff thinks, that's never done anything. The face is his. The eyes stare forward, uncomprehending.

Right. The glasses.

"Here," Jeff says, handing them over, and something in his chest relaxes with relief as the figure unfolds the arms and puts them on. "The prescription may not be quite right. We'll get you your own. Um. Have a towel?"

"Thank you," says the boy. George. His name is George. It's the name they chose from Mom's old notebooks, her runner-up name for a boy, and now it belongs to her second son. George runs the towel briskly over his hair and face before wrapping himself up, then looks down at the bathrobe. "Ah. Can I...?"

"Of course, of course. I'm sorry, you must be very confused."

A pause, then a slow nod. "Yes. I think that's what I am. What is this?"

Dad looks up from the console. "Jeff, I've got to run post-calibration checks. Why don't you two make some sandwiches and talk things through?" Really, just "talk things through?" One day, Jeff thinks, his father will finally make an understatement so colossal that he can't beat it, but this is the biggest yet. 

"Okay," says George. "I'd like some gruel, actually. Do you have rice?"

"In the kitchen," says Jeff, and leads the way. Of course he wants gruel. He only knows about five foods, and they're all Dalaamese. They've definitely got rice in the kitchen, at least, and if George wants to cook and can figure out their stove, Jeff can focus on explaining. Where in the world does he start? At who he and his father are? Or at what George was supposed to be, and what he is now? 

This is going to take a while, but there's nothing for it. Now's the time to learn to be a brother.


End file.
